85 Comments

Well said. Your deep thinking on the subject shows that a country's economic and political systems are not defined by how their economic and political systems are run, but rather by what they are called.

From this deep analysis, we now know that democracy causes dictatorship and tyranny. Read the history of North Korea, which calls itself the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

And if you want both a democracy and a republic, like most of American's politicians, what they want is a society ruled by the threat of rape. Democratic republics cause a tyranny of rape. Read the history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

I compliment TheRazor for doing the work of learning what really is going on in the world and not being swayed by the oversimplified slogans of the 1%.

Like many millions of people throughout The World - I subscribe to Socialist Precepts and Principles because I realise and accept that Socialism has an Ethical Basis and Dimension, above and beyond "The Dog Eat Dog" and "The Devil Take the Hindmost" attitudes of crude laissez-fair crapitalism.

Indeed Modern High-Finance Capitalism (cf Corporate Banksterism / 'Hoover-Up Kaputalism' ) is a Busted Flush and any honest person in possession of the most rudimentary ethical compass can clearly see that.

Brothers and sisters, please do NOT context, confuse or conflate Socialism with 'State Capitalism' or 'Totalitarian Stalinism' (as is the wont of avowed and abject 'anti-socialists' {ahem!}) and please do try to understand why very many 'Economists' and 'Social & Political Commentators' with anything pertinent to say about our Global 'Debtocracy' ( http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/debtocracy/ ) are increasingly referring to Karl Marx ( http://www.marxists.org/ ) for analysis if not solutions.

Socialism is a Philosophy, World View, School of Thought and Morality and is a very 'broad church', from Social Democrats, Fabians, Christian Socialists (inspired by that Proto-Socialist, 'Jesus Christ'!) through Dialectical Materialists, Internationalists, Libertarian Socialists, Anarcho-Syndicalists & others - through to Revolutionary Maoists advocating armed resistance and armed proletarian agrarian revolution.
Ignorant and prejudiced opinions are no place for anyone to objectively assess Socialism, so step back from The Corporate US MSM (ABCNNBCBS / FUX SNEWzzz etc.) induced apoplexy and prejudices and look to make your own mind up. Thus, further to the links above, I also append the following :

'L<3VE' is the base vibration of Socialism. "Socialism" is just a word - but L0VE is its real Vibration, Spirit and Light & I believe that to the core of who and what I am. Just putting it out there ~{:-) & sigh.

I looked into several purely socialist countries based on your original assertion that they werent socialist but tyrannical. What i found is that socialist countries even with the best original intentions degrade into graft, tyranny and corruption.

Why?

Because socialist systems ALWAYS concentrate power absolutely and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In your particular socialist plan, power will be concentrated in the central bank. Absolutely.

Lets run a scenario: 2 widget inventors come to the central bank needing a loan. Company A pays by the rules, but Company B decides to bribe the loan committee. It always happens this way in socialist countries, its unavoidable. In a capitalist country, if Wells Fargo says no, Chase may say yes. In your system ifthe central bank says no, Company A is done. So the incentive to corrupt is extreme, and thats why all socialist countries descend into corruption.

You need to be deprogrammed from a lifetime of brainwashing by the 1%.

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Socialism does not give absolute power to a central bank. The central bank's responsibility is to just provide the individually run banks, that must remain financially viable, with the proper amount of investment funds. They do not approve or deny any loans. How investment works is explained here.

The people who work at those individually run banks are paid based on how well their loans perform. So they will have every incentive to only invest their money in projects that will produce things people will buy.

Of course, there will be corruption in socialism just like there is corruption in capitalism. But the reason why corruption in America does not approach the level of corruption found in emerging countries like the peasant, undeveloped, Medieval Tsarist Russia is because we have a mature justice system with greater transparency, greater accountability and greater protection of human rights.

Increasing the income of workers and making workers equal owners in the companies they work at will not turn overturn America's mature justice system. It won't turn our country into a corrupt, tyrannical, oppressive country with no transparency or accountability.

This claim is totally at odds with reality. You need to be deprogrammed from a lifetime of brainwashing by the 1%.

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Capitalism is a system designed by the 1% to benefit the 1%. Its purpose is to exploit workers by paying them a tiny fraction of what they produce, and then paying the difference to the 1%.

In capitalism, half of all the income workers produce gets paid to a small handful of gamblers who got lucky investing in the market like bankers and entrepreneurs. And most of what remains gets paid to a small handful of people who have bargaining power merely because they are unique like athletes and celebrities.

The vast majority of the workers who produce everything - the engineers, construction workers, factory workers, doctors, miners, farmers, teachers - have to fight over the few crumbs that remain.

Even though worker productivity is $65 per hour, enough to make every worker wealthy, most workers are broke because they only get paid a tiny fraction of the $65 per hour they produce. Most of that $65 unfairly gets paid to the lucky and unique.

The only fair economic system is one which pays workers 100% of the income, since they do 100% of the work, which pays no income to investors since they do no work, and which pays you based on how hard you work, not based on how lucky or unique you are.

The solution to all the world's problems is to put an end to worker exploitation and to enforce an economic system that pays workers 100% of what they produce and pays them based on how hard they work. The solution is socialism.

What do you mean, they wont be approving loans or denying them. Someone has to. There has to be a loan committee just like there is in banks now. How would a loan be judged on merit? Good looks? Just given to anyone?

Somebody approves the loans. Since there is no other mechanism for loans, that committee has absolute power. It is impossible to avoid corruption when one entity has absolute power.

That is exactly why socialism breeds corruption. In socialism power continues to flow to the central authority, in this case the bank. The bank has life or death over every business that needs to borrow.

The original revolutionaries that overthrew the Czar werent intrinsically corrupt. But the concentration of power inherent in socialism IS corrupting. It cant be avoided. And your system will lead to corruption.

Its concentration of power that creates corruption. and you contradicted yourself AGAIN. By your own description, we have a mature justice system with transparency,( I guess America aint that bad afterall) and yet we have corruption with lots of banks. With only one, the power will be so concentrated corruption will be epidemic.

You keep avoiding the central question: How did idealistic socialists ALWAYS END UP with graft, corrption, and bribery?

Your last post states that "we have a mature justice system with transparancy" when clearly there is no justice, because despite everyone now knowing that the GFC was orchestrated by banksters and corporate criminals, there have been no convictions, nor recriminations, nor even changes to the very system that allowed these criminals to perpetrate their crimes.

The ratings agencies gave a AAA rating to financial products that had an extremely high risk, and insurance for these products was purchased to cover that risk. AIG, the insurer, was the first to go under, followed by Lehman. It's a long story, most of which is covered in the doco, Inside Job.

Was rating the financial products poorly a crime? The Wall Street Journal had been screaming to the rafters that the ratings agencies had far too much power with no skin in the game. But is that a crime?

And the amount of corruption a country has depends on its justice system, not its economic system. In order to minimize corruption, regardless of the economic system, you must maximize transparency and accountability.

To say that corruption is caused by workers being paid 100% of the income they produce, instead of half going to workers and half going to investors, is delusional.

To say that the only way to avoid corruption is to have a system where the 1% take most of the income workers produce is delusional.

You are brainwashed by the 1%. They are taking advantage of your gullibility.

One bank gives out loans. There may be lots of separate banks but they all have to chartered in the same way, per your own rules. No interest, no profits, money to be made available by a central bank. No competition.

We must not have any corruption, right, because of our justice system, but we do. And all I say is socialism concentrates all power in the central bank. There is nowhere else to acquire funds for business growth. Right now, i can go to a bank or a credit union, or an investment house, or a private equity firm (Bain) or a venture capitalist.

with your system its ONLY THE BANK. There are no options as we have now. Thats why the USSR BECAME corrupt, it wasnt corrupt to begin. All the power was siphoned to the Communist party. In your world everyone will be at the mercy of this all powerful central bank. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

And you didnt explain your bank system is anything but one bank, owned by the government. There wont be branch offices because there wont be any profit for having a decentralized bank. YOU made banks profitless.

Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Austria, Switzerland, England and Ireland, all these countries are 'socialist' by US standards. They don't hate their poor, show compassion for their citizens and working people do not fear illness for lack of money! What's your point? Stop being so 'anti-social'!

Yeah, and how about that Canada! More socialistic than the US. Clearly they're the evil tyranny of the world! We all know about the evil tyrants of Canada!!! Oooooo so evil and scary those Canadians are! They they they .... they have!! Hockey stiiiiiiicks!!

Surely between the government of Iran and foreign oil companies influencing our elections, everything will work out just great. Because hey hell, the Iranian government and foreign oil corporations are people too.

There is no place that is immune from the actions of evil. The places with an involved public - an empowered public - are better off in being able to fight off evil though - as long as the public stays truthfully informed of what is going on.

You are not 'WeThePeop' but you might be 'MeThePope'! If you think our country is not a 'shambles' then it's you who isn't here! You have no idea about what socialism could be. You have no imagination!

Socialism, the system where everyone gets paid based on how hard they work, has never existed anywhere. Every country has been ruled by a 1% that exploits the masses.

Some countries have some degrees of socialism. And the countries with the most socialism are the countries that are performing the best. The Nordic countries have the highest amount of socialism in the world and they all deliver a higher standard of living than the US.

Are you asking how do I know it can get implemented or how do I know it will work?

If it is the former, it is because it significantly benefits the vast overwhelming majority of the public, and if they ever get organized, they will have the power to implement it. However, the propaganda of the 1% is formidable and they will do everything to prevent workers from organizing, so it will be difficult and there certainly are no guarantees.

If it is the latter, every aspect of democratic market socialism is already proven to work in theory and in practice. In theory, Oskar Lange demonstrated that a socialist market is more efficient than a capitalist market in the famous Economic Calculation Debate with Mises and Hayek. And in practice, we already have absentee owners in publicly owned companies, pay based on difficulty and performance, market allocation of goods and services, companies that must remain profitable, and investors paid based on financial performance of investments. The only difference between socialism and capitalism is that the money being invested is public instead of private and investment bankers could care less where the money comes from. It does not affect their job at all.

You certainly will have your work cut out for you, as there are a LOT of people who hold with this view of things. I am not one of them, btw, and I have my own radical ideas about things. But how do you propose to convince people about Socialism when most of them don't even have any idea what the word actually means?

The strategy would not be to recruit conservatives. Conservatives are never going to embrace socialism.

Most people want a higher income and most of those people do not have a fixed political view. That is the market that would need to be targeted.

And I think that market can be won over.

We have a simple message that is very easy to understand and that the republicans and democrats cannot compete against: Voting socialist will increase your income to at least $115,000 or $230,000 per year, depending on your job, and will cut your work week in half.

Of course, the 1% will dispute that. But their dispute will be based on lies and it is a lot easier to win a debate when the facts are on your side.

Oskar Lange didnt prove a thing. All he has is theory. I can point to several failed socialist countries. The Soviet Union coudnt even feed itself, it needed american capitalistic farmers to save them from starvation. East Germany had to shoot people to keep them from leaving.

I have concrete proof socailism is a failure, you have a debate and an academic paper.With your research and $5, you can get a coffee at Starbucks.

Until you show us an existing country where socialism has worked, all you have is smoke and mirrors.

Market socialism has also been used to refer to reformed economic systems in Marxist-Leninist states, such as the People's Republic of China, where a free price system is utilized for the allocation and distribution of all resources in the state sector. In this model, state ownership is reserved for "strategic" sectors of the economy. Within this model, the state would utilize indirect market mechanisms (fiscal, monetary and Industrial policy) to influence economic activity in the same manner governments affect economic decisions in capitalist economies, including the use of (external) regulation over the otherwise autonomously-operating state enterprises. However, proponents of this model do not consider it to be a form of market socialism in the neoclassical sense, and instead describe it as an alternative economic model called the "socialist market economy".[5]<<<

Oh we do have an example of market socialism as designed by Lange. As I stated, it leads to tyranny and a oppressive civil rights trampling central state.

Dolnt argue with me, I have concrete examples of YOUR failed doctrine. You have nothing but a paper and a debate from 80 years ago.

You need to be deprogrammed from a lifetime of brainwashing by the 1%.

Increasing the income of workers and making workers equal owners in the companies they work at will not turn America into a tyrannical, oppressive country.

Politicians in America are forced to resign for tweeting inappropriate pics. The idea that they will all of a sudden be able to get away with Stalin tactics, imprison or murder their opponents, or make free speech illegal because workers got a raise is totally at odds with reality.

Because 100% of the wealth that company creates is produced by the workers. The investor produces absolutely nothing.

We don't need an economic system that requires people to invest their own private savings in order for workers to organize and produce goods and services.

Instead, we should have an economic system that uses public funds for investment as explained here. Workers would then no longer have to pay half their income to investors. They would no longer get exploited. They would get paid in full as equal owners of the entire economy.

A system where the 1% take most of the income and wealth that the workers produce and that leaves half the country in or near poverty as a result is a tyranny of the wealthy.

A system where workers are equal owners of the economy and get paid 100% of the income they produce so that they can get paid at least $115k for working 20 hours per week which gives them the money and time to freely do whatever they want is not tyranny of the wealthy or government.

An economic system which pays workers 100% of the income, since they do 100% of the work, which pays no income to investors since they do no work, and which pays you based on how hard you work, not based on how lucky or unique you are is not govt tyranny!!

Capitalism is the best system for the 1% who are lucky and unique and get to take most of the income the workers produce.

But for the vast majority of workers - who are all being exploited and losing most of the income they produce - it is a terrible system.

A significantly better system for the vast majority of workers is one which pays workers 100% of the income, since they do 100% of the work, which pays no income to investors since they do no work, and which pays you based on how hard you work, not based on how lucky or unique you are.

That system would pay you at least $115k for working 20 hours per week which is much better than being exploited in capitalism.

You need to be brainwashed in order to claim a system which pays you significantly less and robs you of most of the income you produce is better.

There is this genetic disease. They call it human nature. There is no cure but for some people, it may go into remission. There have been many systems devised to treat it, but at best, they slow its progression. Removal from power seems to relieve the symptoms, at least temporarily. Some people seem to be naturally immune, but this may be an illusion.

The USSR was never "True Socialism." But serves as the perfect Straw Man for deceitful Right Wingers who want to dissuade people from thinking governments that work for them instead of Big Biz & Military are desirable.

Democratic Socialist countries are doing just fine in Europe and other continents. Among the top ten countries rated for quality of life by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Better Life Initiative, examining how various aspects of people's lives affect the general well-being of whole countries, socialism wins and the US doesn't even come close.

But among countries with the highest concentration of wealth in the top 1%, gap between rich and poor, least effective and most expensive health care system, violent crime and religious nutbaggery, and lowest Voter turnout, we're tops! Yay for Fascist Plutocracy!

Soviet Union was not at all Socialism , it was Dictatorship coated with socialism , the pepole in soviet union is slaves work for union , u have no right , u right Determined by the state , They made people like a feather in the wind , the wind move as it wish

It used to be speech, now its every form of media and without power a citizens cannot share or see that truths needed for survival are understood.

A republic has principles. If, those happen to be universally respected and timeless in most respects, then all people really need is a structure like Article V* of our constitution.

Preperatory amendment ending the abridging of free speech, reforming campaign finance and securing the voting machines or count are primary at the onset of Article V. Then after a time, the general Article V can continue with maximum democratic involvement BECAUSE the people have been informed by each other for their purposes.

It not only creates tyranny it creates dependency and stops forward movement and progress in society. It lowers society to the lowest common denominator and brings everyone down but the political elite who decide for everyone else. They always cut out a better piece for themselves.